With the federal budget fading into the past the question, as always, becomes “what’s next”. The answer seems to be focused on “interest rates”. It seems inevitable that they will rise from their current historic lows. So the next question become: when, by how much, how fast and – given the ongoing concerns about household debt – what will happen.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has made it clear it intends to hold its benchmark rate at near zero into 2014. But popular thinking among economists is that the Bank of Canada could move sooner but not until Q1 2013. The risk of inflation is the biggest deciding factor now.